Well, not really a treat but something I actually do pretty rarely.

I painted a couple of sample figures. Usually I have a very good idea what I want from a figure and simply form a mental picture of the desired outcome before setting to work. Sometimes it doesn't turn out quite like I planned, but I usually finish the figures anyway, chalk it up to experience and try something else the next time.

But this time I was stymied. For two different reasons. The first one is relatively simple. I do relatively little painting to strict specifications as I tend to favor genres where there is considerable leeway in uniform details or they can be summed up as a couple of general colors. Napoleonic uniforms are a completely different beast. They can be pretty complex, there is detailed information on most of the details (probably too detailed, considering the practicalities of actual use on campaigns) and the Napoleonic hobby is rife with helpful individuals who like to validate their existence by pointing out other people's mistakes.

Finding the painting reference information for the Portuguese army proved somewhat troublesome. As it is not as popular as Old Guard or 95th Rifles, there was just less information available. And what was available, was not complete. As a relative newbie to Napoleonics, I found it odd that I found multiple sources for the facing colors, but no one would tell me what color the water bottle is supposed to be...

Since I'm supposed to paint 47 more of these in a couple of weeks, I decided to paint one sample first to get an idea of all the colors and steps involved. It proved not to be quite as bad as I feared, even though I did take a few shortcuts. I think I have a fair chance of actually finishing these.

The other one was quite different. Here I was not bound by some official color scheme. But I did have the idea of painting the Bauhaus troopers as 'Baughast'. I dug up some reference pictures of Helghast and contrary to the popular image, they are not black. They are dark, dreary and drab except for the glowing eyes ofcourse, but they are not black.

I wasn't quite sure how to get the effect I wanted, especially considering that I had 40 of the buggers to mass produce in a couple of weeks. The same couple of weeks that are reserved for the Portuguese.

The armor plates were going to be black, but I needed another color for the cloth. I tried a drab brown, but I didn't like it and in any case it was too close to the one Imperial trooper I had done ages ago. I probably want to do the rest of the Imperials in the same scheme later on.

So I settled on a light gray with a rather heavy black wash. I contemplated just drybrushing the whole thing, but this turned out pretty fine so I'm going with it.

Yes, November Resolutions project is Baughast. Why didn't I just choose the Portuguese as Resolutions project? Because I bought the figures this year, Resolutions stuff is supposed to come from old stock.

P.S. Besides, who would be scared of hardware store troopers? Something had to be done...

maxxon